Are Female-Breadwinner Couples Always Less Stable? Evidence from French Administrative Data

The paper studies the association between partners' relative incomes and union dissolution among couples in France. With the increase in dual-earner couples and women’s educational level, couples in which women earn more than their partners are structurally becoming more widespread. Because female breadwinning challenges long-lived social norms regarding traditional gender roles, scholars have theorized a higher risk of union dissolution among female-breadwinner couples compared to couples in other income arrangements. We estimate the risk of union dissolution using regression analyses on unique longitudinal data from French administrative sources containing an unconventionally high number of couples (4% of the population) and separation events (more than 100,000), as well as precise and reliable income measurement. Female-breadwinner couples face a higher risk of union dissolution compared to other couple types. This result is robust to various definitions of female breadwinning and controls for partners’ employment status. Contrary to recent research on other countries, we find no sign of a fading effect among younger cohorts. However, among younger, cohabiting couples and couples in registered partnerships the risk of union dissolution is lowest when both partners are employed and provide a similar share of the total couple’s income, suggesting the emergence of a new profile of stable couples. The female-breadwinner penalty in union dissolution is in place; also in France, it holds among married and cohabiting couples and registered partnerships, across all birth cohorts and levels of household income.